I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [104]
We agonized, concluded we had to trust in Jim, give up the chimera of the miracle serum, and accept that George was doomed. Rigid with grief, Carrie worried, “Where do you bury a baby in New York?” and tearfully demanded, “I want another baby.”
A few days later, Balanchine pulled me out of class at SAB. “What about Eugenie’s doctor? The one in Chicago?” I informed him of Jim’s assessment. He stared at me a long time, then said, “It’s your wife’s fault for smoking! She poisoned him with her cigarettes! You have to make her stop smoking!”
Before Balanchine quit smoking, he used to give cartons of cigarettes to people as gifts, even if they didn’t smoke. But now that he had quit, everyone had to stop. “Mr. B,” I said, “Carrie’s tried to quit before, but it’s so hard.” He commanded, “Divorce her if she doesn’t!”
A month passed, then two, then five, and George showed no sign of cancer. Jim was amazed; Carrie was pregnant; I was in limbo. Our second son, elfin Christopher, arrived February 4, 1960, to be greeted by George, now a bouncing, healthy three-year-old. Jim ordered a reexamination of the original tissue, and with the results unchanged, concluded, “There was no mistake in our diagnosis. George should be dead.” We celebrated, and dubbed George “the Miracle.” “No need to come regularly anymore,” Jim advised. “Just watch him.” Any time George had a stomachache, sniffle in his nose, we headed straight for Dr. Gould.
Life was now doves and roses, so we planned a trip on the Queen Mary for our quartet. Then, horror! Carrie noticed on George a return of that little growth, in the same place the cancer had formed before. Jim ordered a biopsy and discovered the rhabdomyosarcoma was back. He performed the surgery himself, and, still in his greens, announced to us, “I got it all out, in a little capsule.” He offered some hope, “In the time that has passed, a new radiation treatment has been developed, where it is possible to eradicate cells in a one-millimeter area, without affecting any of the surrounding tissue.”
Queen Mary was dumped, and George started treatments. Once a week, we’d take him to Lenox Hill Hospital, and in a small room, he’d lie, strap-wrapped on a slab, with beanbags attached around the sides of his head to prevent movement. The radiation machine was shaped like a giant metal breast hanging on tracks from the ceiling. With a gyroscopic mechanism, it was possible to maneuver and twist its nipple-like nozzle to any angle. The actual treatment took only a few seconds, then we’d open the door and dash back in, release George, and cover him with hugs and kisses. Once a week, for something like six weeks, and then Jim Gould said, “Now, we watch and pray.”
As George grew, the tiny portion of tissue destroyed in the treatments didn’t. The result is a slightly crooked smile that women find irresistible. Charmed and charming, “the Miracle” grew to become a strapping, handsome man. Forty years later, we hiked the entire Appalachian Trail together. I was sixty-five; he was forty-four. Over the trail’s 2,180 miles, George took care of me, worrying, “How’re you holding up, Dad?” Most memorable were our rest breaks, two animals slouched in repose on the side of the trail, gabbing about every subject, from philosophy to feet. Each time I look at him, I think, “He’s alive! He’s a miracle!”
Photo snapped by Heidi Preuss, an Olympic skier and fellow hiker, 1999, as George hovers over his dad (image credit 11.1)
When Chris was three, we thought, “Should we try for another?” It seemed we could call out “BABY” and Carrie was pregnant. And so we did. By the end of her term she was enormous. It was impossible for her to sleep in a bed. The weight of her stomach would push down so much that she couldn’t breathe. Poor wife! She slept in a rocking chair.
On Monday, May 11, at four thirty a.m. Carrie called out, “I think the baby is coming!” Having sprained my back at the matinee the day before, I was crawling around on my hands and knees, worthless, so